SocialFinance.ca exists to track the big stories of social finance in Canada. Strangely, one of the biggest success stories of social finance in Canada has managed to avoid the spotlight, and as a result, has gone under-reported on this platform. That is the Government of Nova Scotia's Community Economic Development Investment Funds (CEDIF).

The CEDIF program offers a 35% tax credit for Nova Scotians who put their investment capital in funds that support locally-owned and operated corporations, cooperatives, and community economic development initiatives. Since 1999, the program has spurred the creation of 48 funds and 91 offerings, which have a total of more than $32 million in assets. The funds are being invested in businesses across the province. Data on financial returns and social impact to date does not appear to be available.

The beauty of the CEDIF program is that, in addition to addressing Nova Scotia's challenge of keeping local investment capital in the province, the program has 'replication' and 'scale' written all over it. One province's incentives for local investing can be another province's plan for green energy investing or support for minority-owned businesses. For example, the Ontario Social Economy Roundtable recently released a draft paper with recommendations on creating tax incentives to increase investments in Ontario-based social enterprises. The paper discusses at length how Nova Scotia's CEDIF program could be retooled for this purpose.

SocialFinance.ca will continue to report on the CEDIF program's impact in Nova Scotia and how other provinces and jurisdictions across Canada use it as model for developing their own breakthroughs in social finance.

I'll leave you with this testimony, lifted from the official CEDIF brochure for 2010.

"In my 35 years of experience in economic development in Nova Scotia, there has never been a more cost-effective program for encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation. CEDIFs are a vehicle for economic growth that will take us a long way to becoming economically, socially and environmentally self-sustaining." -Shelley Wilcox, CEDIF Management Ltd.

What do you think? Can the Nova Scotia Community Economic Development Investment Funds serve as a model for the rest of Canada?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/redvette/1471643369/

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